Proximo's GTD Setup

Thanks a lot to Proximo for his set-up.
I had been a Toodledo user for about a year but had not found a way that really worked, so I used it mainly as a super to-do list.

For the last couple of months I've used Proximo's system, and have made 4 tweaks I thought I should share back.

1-- "Tickler" became "Recurring" where I put all the tasks that I know come back automatically. For example "Pay utility bills" every 3rd of the month. I never put those in the main "Action" folder because I want to make the distinction between business-as-usual and the stuff I have to do for a project.

2-- "Waiting for" became "Follow up"
For some tasks that are delegated or completed, I add something like "FO w/ John about [original text]" and then update the due date to when I want to follow up. I do not like the "Waiting for" notion because in my job I have to chase people a lot.

3-- Th Weekly review is a 3-step process
A/ Add items (and sub-items) to the Projects, regardless of whether they are 1-step items of multi-step ones. More a brain dump than a systematic process.
B/ I review the new updated list and structure, re-order, complement the list to make sure I have updated all the projects
C/ I re-allocate the 1-step items to the Action list (and put the stars for the Next Actions)

Like this I make sure I am actually making progress on ALL the projects. It is also rather convenient to do because I only work on one tab of Toodledo. Promoting non-starred actions to starred action is part of the daily processing, not the weekly review.

4-- I do not use tags at all, and no @Contexts. Rather, I always start my task descriptions by the same few word ("Email john re. ..." , "Call Jane re. ...", "Do PowerPoint presentation...", "Google ...") that act as the action-verb AND the context at once.
After all, I have a cell phone, so I am always in a possible "@Phone" context. Same rationale for @Email thanks to the blackberry, etc. When I want to make a series of calls, I just have to sort the list of Next Actions in alphabetical order....

I'm not sure I understand the reason for having separate folders for (singleton) Actions and (multistep) Projects. I'm not seeing the problem with keeping all these actions in the same folder.

For example, I could have a folder Items, which would hold all my actions and projects. Projects and singleton actions would be tasks, and the steps of a project would be subtasks. Using the indented subtask view, all the subtasks appear under their project. Sorting the view by Task/Subtask I see first all my projects gathered together (under Parents), followed by the singleton actions (under Tasks). If I want to see a list of my projects, I can click hidden for subtasks, and the Parents division will now show a list of Projects.

My projects and actions are still separated, but they are both on the same scrollable page. One advantage is that it is easier to make a singleton action a subtask, since I don't have to change its folder.

The set-up with 2 folders for actions and projects comes straight from the Get Things Done methodology.
Here's my take on it :

-- Having just one list pushes you to have a top-line item with multiple sub-items, and very soon you end up wanting 3 or 4 sub-levels, dependencies between tasks, start- and end-dates, percentage comploetion, etc. And your simple to-do list becomes a full-blown project management tools. Nothing wrong with that, but more complexe.

-- Separating the two avoid the trap above and has advantages on its own
+ you only put on the actoin list the things you can actually do. No preparation, no waiting for someone to get back to you, no 5-step sequence. Just the immediate next step. (That's the hardcore version. The more reasonable version is to write all of the individual actions, and mark the immedate next one with a star). It is simple and you have no excuse not to do it...

+ The project folder can be viewed as a list of "reminders" or "triggers" for you to identify what your actions should be. Seeing same item "Finish TPS report" on the project list will bring to mind several action-items at once. It's easier to maintain your action list that way.

I tried to set this up last night, but using the custom search recommended at the beginning / in the video, I'm not seeing the subtasks. I remember reading some posts about flattened vs indented, but I thought I read that indented could be used in the search and subtasks would still appear? Does flattened have to be used in the custom searches?

Edit: Oops just saw the post from a couple days ago regarding this. But I thought Proximo said that he did this setup so that he could use indented and not have to switch to flattened?

Posted by rchernoff:
Edit: Oops just saw the post from a couple days ago regarding this. But I thought Proximo said that he did this setup so that he could use indented and not have to switch to flattened?

How do people sort the various views?

At first I tried using Toodledo with set preferences, but now I change my views frequently... both in terms of View by (e.g. folder, context and due date are my favourites) and I also switch between having sub-tasks hidden, indented and flattened.

I've found that switching it around frequently helps avoid "fatigue", i.e. where using the system the same way all the time leads to me not actually seeing stuff that's right in front of my eyes.

I'd have to agree with Peter, my "view" is more of a scan of folders, priorities, statuses, due dates (with and without) and contexts as a sort of reload of pertinent next actions and standard ole one-offs and things to be tickled about. I know for a fact, that if I simply looked at a single view all the time I would start not seeing the top of the list and never really look at the bottom of it. Doesn't really take any longer than looking at a single view and trying to take it all in in one go (which also blows the whole divide and conquer approach to this sort of task management).

Anyone using a Proximo-like set up and also using the Android Got To Do app? I'm curious how well they go together.

Thanks,
David

Hi David

I'm using Proximo's set-up along with the Android Got To Do app. The android app is very nice especially considering it's a 1.x release. Very functional and reliable. for the few dollars it's certainly worth the purchase just to support continuing development. However, it is quite functional.

Like all 3rd part apps there are some things that don't match the web site exactly or are not yet implemented. However, I didn't even notice those things until i was doing some pretty detailed tweaking. Like many people here I've tried many of the various web/android pairs. For me, this was a perfect match.

When I was starting to use GTD, I had a hard time grasping all the ideas and one friend suggested I visit the site. Since then, I'd say it taught me so much on accountability and I really felt the concern in helping me. It made me work out some confusions. So for some people who are going through the same dillema of complexity surrounding the subject of GTD, the website would really be worth checking out.

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